Joey Payeur
They each were outstanding achievers in their own way and now will be linked throughout history forever.
Three individuals and two teams were named Monday to be part of the inaugural induction class for the new Fort Frances Sports Hall of Fame.
Hockey player Frank “Ike” Eisenzoph and bodybuilder Brock Madill (in the athletes’ category) and executive Jon Gustafson (in the builders’ category) were selected out of nominations from the community.
The two teams chosen were the 1960 Fort Frances Canadians, which won the Western Canadian Intermediate Senior Championship, and the 1989 Muskie football team, which won the school’s first NWOSSAA title since its inception in 1953.
They will be joined by the 10 Fort Frances natives and the 1952 Allan Cup champion Fort Frances Canadians, who already are members of the Northwestern Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in Thunder Bay.
Eisenzoph, a member of both the 1952 Allan Cup champion Canadians and the 1960 squad, will be both the lone posthumous inductee and the only one of the class to be honoured twice.
“I think it’s wonderful,” said Eisenzoph’s widow, Jean.
“He sure tried hard when he played.
“He liked all sports and enjoyed everything he did,” she added.
“I think he would be thrilled if he were here.
“A sports hall of fame here has been a long time coming,” Jean Eisenzoph noted.
“I wish he could have lived to see it but sometimes these things don’t happen.”
John Hazel, a defenceman on the 1960 Canadians who also was Eisenzoph’s roommate on road trips, has fond memories of the squad.
“It was a great bunch of local guys,” Hazel recalled.
“I’m very proud of our team, as well as the team before us that won the Allan Cup.”
Dave Montgomery, head coach of the ’89 Muskies’ gridiron squad, said he was “overwhelmed” by the honour given his team.
“I showed up here 44 years ago and was given a job, but my sole purpose was to coach football,” he recounted.
“The program was not in really good shape and then 19 years later, boom, we get the NWOSSAA title.
“The program has been a big part of my life,” Montgomery added.
“To be part of that group was something special.”
Madill, meanwhile, won multiple provincial, national, and world bodybuilding championships in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Gustafson was a member of the 1986 Muskie boys’ hockey team that won Fort High’s first OFSAA championship in that sport.
But his more significant contributions to the game have come in his role as vice-president of Sharks Sports and Entertainment, a subsidiary company of the NHL’s San Jose Sharks.
He also is vice-president of the Worcester (Mass.) Sharks of the AHL.
Gustafson oversees all areas of operation for the Sharks Ice family of ice rinks in California, and takes care of all business operations for the Worcester franchise.
As well, he sits on the board of directors for USA Hockey and the International Ice Skating Institute.
An exact date for the induction ceremony, likely in July or August, could be announced as soon as tomorrow after the hall’s organizing committee meets tonight.
